Bravado
by Tears of Mercury
Summary: Stop it, Fee, she tells herself sharply, as if she can command her own mind as easily as she commands almost everyone else. [oneshot]


She isn't quite sure if it is a tree root or an errant rock that causes her to fall, but before she has time to regain her balance she has been pitched face-first into a disgusting assortment of mud, leaves, and twigs. "Blast!" she curses, wondering for the hundredth time why Gemma wanted them to come to the caves separately tonight. It's hard to decipher the meaning in anything Gemma says; Felicity has a notion that more often than not her friend only gives the barest essentials. Trying to get private information out of that one can be like pulling teeth.

Using her hands to push herself up she manages to fall back on her bottom, hopelessly staining the other side of her skirt. Mrs. Nightwing will be apoplectic. _Serves her right,_ Felicity thinks. _Who in the bloody hell would make the uniforms of schoolgirls solid white?_ A small voice in the back of her head reminds her that the damage might not be so bad and she might not be so cold if she had just put on her cloak before sneaking out. Spring or not, it's still dreadfully cold in the evenings. As it stands Felicity can't be bothered with things like practical wardrobe choices this late at night when she's dying to get out of the hellhole her teachers refer to as school.

"That's better," she says to herself as she stands up. She surveys the stains in satisfaction; while they might lose her fifty good conduct marks she doesn't have anyway (she's not been much for schoolwork since Pippa died), they will serve to make a certain elderly housekeeper fly off the handle. This past term has been so dull that one less dress is a small price to pay for the entertainment.

Felicity knows that Ann has most likely only just now entered the forest; that is, assuming she's mustered up the nerve to come at all. She loves the girl dearly, but she sometimes wonders if the offer of eternal beauty is the only thing that would get Ann to grow a backbone. Her rare bursts of willfulness usually come at the worst possible time, guaranteeing a rather amusing problem for Gemma or a sorely taxing lie on Felicity's part. Sometimes, she muses, talking to Ann is like explaining a rather difficult problem to a surly pupil.

A deer is somewhere nearby, her four spindly legs snapping twigs frantically as she runs from an invisible foe (or maybe Ann came out tonight after all?). The sound takes Felicity back to another only moderately freezing British night when she led two of her friends against a third and made her first kill outside of the realms. She had thought it would make her feel strong. She had thought killing something more helpless than her in exchange for power would be gratifying. Instead it only made her feel even more helpless as things quickly spiraled out of control. She had hated Gemma that night, possibly more than ever before.

She's being sentimental, she thinks ruefully. The only two people besides herself that she feels more than the mildest like or dislike for are ages away, one to the city and one to another world entirely. _Cold, calloused hands touching her legs, throwing up her skirt, a body leaning over hers and it's heavy, too heavy to push off, and she's not breathing -_

"Stop it, Fee," she tells herself sharply, as if she can command her own mind as easily as she commands almost everyone else. _Slender, milky fingers laced through hers, violet eyes laughing, an impulsive promise - "We'll always be great friends, won't we, Felicity? I'll name my first daughter after you, and she'll have my eyes and her father's Grecian features." -_ Tears sting her eyes and she brushes them away furiously. Proper young women don't cry unless they have been jilted by a suitor or they're in a delicate condition. Felicity's never cared about proprieties before, but now seems like a good time to start. Now they might protect her instead of hinder her.

Her thoughts turn to the Indian boy Gemma is so taken with, and she has to suppress a snort of contempt. In his own way Kartik is certainly attractive, but for Gemma to think that he's trustworthy enough to bring into the realms is completely unreasonable. He's Indian, for one thing, and who knows who he's still reporting back to, "betrayal" of the Rakshana be damned - and of course there's the matter of him being male. No one of that sex is trustworthy. Give them an inch and they take a mile's worth of liberties. She's seen it happen enough times to weaker girls than Gemma Doyle, who's still much too pliable for her own good.

More and more often now Felicity finds herself amused by this paradox. The thing that had originally attracted her to Gemma was an underlying determination and a clever mind (not nearly as clever as her own, of course), as well as the general aura of control she managed to give off. Felicity likened Gemma to a lesser version of herself. Then she had to say, do, think the unexpected, something not even Felicity would dream of; and suddenly Felicity would find herself perturbed and just a tiny bit jealous. The more powerful Gemma becomes, the more desperately Felicity tries to keep face around her.

Neither of them have mentioned the evening at Felicity's house where her best friend stumbled upon a secret still too raw to be admitted. Felicity chooses not to because if she pretends no one else knows, she can almost imagine that she herself has no recollection of what happened to her during the first twelve years of her life. She suspects Gemma says nothing both because she is too good-hearted to intentionally cause her friend any pain and because she has no idea what to say. Generals aren't supposed to behave that way towards their daughters, after all. And it is her fault. She brings out the worst in people. _"What are you saying, Felicity? Are you suggesting that your father would behave towards you - would touch you - would - you dreadful, dreadful girl! How dare you say such a thing!"_

It takes even longer to banish the phantom voices to the recesses of her mind this time. She allows herself a rare moment of unadorned bitterness and wishes that just once it was that everyone else brought out the worst in her - that it was Mrs. Nightwing and her mother and the whole of the male gender who were responsible for her defiance, Simon who was responsible for her misleading advances, Cecily and Elizabeth and Martha who were to blame for her cruelty. It's tiring always being in the wrong.

A ghost of a smile touches her lips when she sees Gemma standing watch at the mouth of the cave some thirty steps away. She is anxiously wringing her hands, but her jaw is clenched in determination. Unruly red hair is more disheveled than usual, and with widening eyes Felicity sees another figure standing in the shadows, this one decidedly male. An indignant harrumph escapes her lips. Gemma's head snaps toward her and a relieved smile covers her face for a moment before she takes in Felicity's expression and trains her own.

She can't fully convince herself she's only irritated because she wasn't warned that he would be here or because she knows Gemma will side with him over her and Ann. The truth, she knows, is that she's afraid of Gemma ignoring her completely. She's grown far too dependant on the wary affection of someone so idealistic.

Felicity stomps her feet like a child as she carefully picks her way up to the two others and sends a glare in the general direction of Kartik. In it she tries to convey that if he so much as presumes to hurt Gemma she'll flay him alive. Of course, she realizes that the effect is probably lost somewhere between the muddy white dress and the great gasps of air she's taking in, but it's the intent that counts. With her, the rest almost always follows naturally.


End file.
